So...I've been noticing a couple things. First of all, the dems are distancing themselves from Platner. I know one sub I was on was talking about how they're quietly removing him from their fundraising graphics. And I was a bit miffed about this because again, WHAT ABOUT VOTE BLUE NO MATTER WHO, GUYS?! You know? They beat that crap over our heads for 10 years then when the shoe is on the other foot its like they're sabotaging the guy.
But at the same time, since the scandals broke, polling has been getting worse for him. For a while, he was D+7.5 or so, with a roughly 98% shot at winning. This has dropped to 4.5, which drops his odds to 87%. Still substantive, but keep in mind, polls are a snapshot in time, and the movement is jarring. We dropped 3 points in a few days. And new polls have him at D+2 if we count the two newest ones bombing his average. That gives him a 69% chance of winning in theory, but keep in mind, Maine is weird. Their margin of error can be wonky, and I would expect Collins to overperform. So that 4.5% average is a lot squishier than it may appear. Don't get me wrong, it's still better than what Janet Mills was pulling, but still, we're talking a 2 point advantage vs 7 if we count only the newest polls.
With that said, how should we think about this. The functionalist argument is the dems are distancing themselves because the scandals ARE bad news, they ARE impacting his polling, and yeah he IS a weaker candidate than appeared. You could argue that. But if you were to approach this from a conflict perspective, you could also say the dems have been actively pushing the scandals and hyper emphasizing them to tank him. And I think that that's true too. The democrats are NOT leaning into his strengths. His entire race in corporate media is being framed from a position of his weaknesses. And this includes on MSNBC and from liberals. That's what got me going the other night when the feminists were going on about "angry white guys" which sounds like another bad faith bernie bro esque argument. These centrist libs LOVE to push identity politics to tank economic progressives, which is how you get "angry white guys" in the first place. Beyond that, people act like he IS a nazi because he had the tattoo, even though if anything his political history indicates that he's a reddit communist. But hey, bad faith actors be bad faith actors, and most voters arent educated.
So....with that said, arent the scandals a big deal because the powers that be (who, keep in mind, don't want progressives) are making a big deal of them? I would say so. Now, dont get me wrong, politics is politics and if dems didnt do this republicans would. I mean when you're campaigning the idea is to paint your opponent in the worst light possible, but ya know, I'd expect a bit more support from the dems at this point. Instead we get all this talk that "oh no, these scandals are totally a big deal, should we ignore the will of the voters and replace him?" I'd love to say that if they did that I'd vote green out of spite, but in this election cycle, they kinda got us. We're stuck between a fascist and a hard place, and can't afford to protest vote. Still, these frickers REALLY REALLY make me wanna, oh my gosh I wanna drop the dems so bad. I cant express how alienating they are and how much they make me hate them. Youd think it would be easy to make someone like me like you, but it's like the dems are explicitly trying to be evil too. They just get away with it because given Trump, they're still...the lesser evil. But evil and still evil.
Idk. My opinion, support platner the best you can. Get the republicans out at all costs, then we can flip on the dems and hope the republicans sober up a bit back toward being their NORMAL type of evil, and not this batcrap insane fascist blend of it. But yeah. This is what i was fearing in 2016, a whole political alignment where progressives are sidelined for a generation by a hostile party that we cant realistically leave because the republicans have gone full blown psycho. I hate the fact that we're here. I can't express enough how much I hate modern politics. Anyone who wants to do the right thing gets crushed by this crappy duopoly, and then we gotta vote for the lesser evil because the greater one wants literal third reich style fascism it seems. I hate it.
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